All this was done at EclipseCon, a small education-oriented event being held in Santa Clara. There was no flash, no glamour, and no celebrity. Just simple descriptions of new computing tools for an audience of programmers.

EclipseCon is all about the professional developer. A highlight today is a talk on "how to say no" to unreasonable demands by executives. At the show JBOSS is a top-line sponsor, its name above those of IBM, Intel and Cisco. The addition "by Red Hat" is in small letters below the JBOSS name (above).

Because Red Hat doesn't bang the big drum, and because it doesn't hang out in Silicon Valley, there is a tendency to underestimate it. This was not where JBOSS was headed before it was acquired -- as a start-up it had a more flamboyant personality.

But that personality is about all that's been removed from the company. And people don't pay support contracts for personality. They pay for professional services. Which JBOSS and Red Hat deliver.

All this makes for a fairly boring blog post, which is unlikely to get much traffic or talkbacks. That's a shame, because in following the flash rather than the substance I think some readers do themselves a disservice.

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